final trades. >> sanchez energy. sm. >> freeport mcmoran. scott, thank you. after a tough week last week, the bulls coming back stampede style. gangham style! look at the dow up big, 167 points. s&p and nasdaq virtually erasing last week's losses. knock-knock. who's there? nobody. guess who isn't working with 42 days before we go off the fiscal cliff? congress! with just about all attention focused on israel and hamas, maybe the markets and the world should focus on this rally in amman, jordan instead. see why this could shake up the reason beyond anyone's worst fears. michelle is in for sue today

at the nyse. welcome, michelle. >> hey, tyler. thanks. we got a nice triple digit rally today. going to start with a market alert on this big day for the markets. robert pisani, what's the story about why we're climbing today? >> nobody is around in congress to say anything bad about the fiscal cliff. everyone said, hey, we're looking good! president in bangkok said things are looking good. pelosi came out, representative pelosi, speaker of the house, said we can do a deal. everybody's happy. then they all left. there is a recess. nobody's coming back with a fiscal crisis. a week and a half. >> that means there's no bad news. >> what sectors were most beaten up in the recent election? tech, telecom, energy and utilities. what sectors are up the most today? tech, telecom, energy and utilities. >> coincidence? >> wall street. don't you just love the whole thing? the important thing is we're getting a little bit of gyrations in the gur reuro beca

there is a finance minister's meeting tomorrow morning. that's helped our stock market because the dollar tends to weaken when that happens. that helps material stocks overall. the titanic volume in the etf associated with japan for the last two days it's been enormous. that's because there is a lot of chatter about big-time quantitative easing, printing of money, coming in japan. that's got etf traders really active. this is like two times normal volume. take a look now at the front page of the "wall street journal" today. "if the cliff wasn't worrying you, perhaps this should. corporate investment falling off its own cliff as they cut spending plans." the story in the journal says half of this country's 40 biggest publicly traded companies have announced plans to cut spending this year or next. investment in new equipment stalled in the third quarter. the "journal" also says corporate executives are slowing or delaying big projects.

the two things -- fiscal cliff and investment cliff certainly interrelated. that's the definition of holding america's economy hostage. the politico's chief economic correspondent ben white says don't worry so much. ben, why do you say that? welcome back to "power lunch." why do you say this deal you think is done? >> details i think of the deal aren't done but the inevitability of the deal is done. people are looking at this through the lens of 2010-2011, a rising tea party, complete dysfunction in congress. not that we have a great function in language but we had a presidential election which the president ran and run on raising the top income tax rates. even republicans admit across the board, governor haley barbour of mississippi, one of the most conservative states in the nation, said we have to cut our losses on this, take some slight tax increase in return for some spending cuts. they're going to be back and forth, there's going to be

moments where it looks like we're close to a deal, then terms change a little bit. but there is absolutely no appetite on the part of the republican party to get blamed for a fiscal cliff crash that ruins the economy in 2013. they're not in the position they were in 2010-2011. we're going to get some drama but it is going to be fake drama and we're going to get a deal zplip hear you on the idea that the republican lost seats in the house, didn't pick up in the senate tells you one thing. but the other thing is we have separation of powers in this country and we have checks and balances. right now the republican controlled house is one of those checks and so how does that square and how do they square the circle here or circle the square? >> i think what you'll see is that there will be some parts of the republican caucus in the house, hard-core tea party caucus who will oppose the deal in the enif it raises marginal tax rates but there won't be enough of those to block passage. speaker boehner will put a coalition together of moderate companies, even some conservative republicans along

with democrats to get a deal that has some increased revenue probably in marginal rate increases, also some deduction closing loophole closing, probably corporate tax rates will change tick lei larly on carried interest. he will sell it to enough people through the house while not risk it to those who have races in 2014 who might get a primary. he won't get so many defections he won't get a deal across. we shouldn't jump to the conclusion because there are still hard-line conservatives no-tax increase republicans in the house that they dominate now, they don't dominate. >> ben white, interesting analysis. just heard ben white thinks we're going to get a deal done but right now america's economy is still being held hostage. the fact that washington is on vacation -- not helping. eamon javers is live on capitol hill where congress isn't. eamon. >> that's right. look behind me. see if you see any members of congress. they're not here, they're on recess for thanksgiving week. the president of the united states is in cambodia on an

overseas trip of multi-days but there is still some work going on here in washington. let me walk you through thanksgiving week in washington, d.c. starting with the president who over the weekend called some major ceos including jpmorgan's jamie dimon who pick their brains about where they think we should go in terms of this fiscal cliff. he also called warren buffett and tim cook of apple. hill staffers are here today, casual monday on capitol hill, they're putting numbers on paper. democratic senate aides say they are working on language that would allow the top bush tax cuts rates to expire. they're going to hold the line on that provision. then the outside groups are mobilizing. just got an e-mail today from a group of unions including afsme and others. their message is protect medicare, medicaid and social security. to ben white's point a couple of minutes ago where there might and deal that's likely, i'm a

little bit more pes miss pick. in fact i just bet him a dollar we'll go very, very close to this deadline if not over it before all is said and done because of some of these outside groups and some of the republicans and other members in the house of representatives who represent very idea ideologically pure groups. that's where we're going. >> thank you very much, eamon javers. as our money is being held hostage by washington, what's wall street doing? head of morgan stanley global investing solutions, andrew, welcome back. do you think there is going to be a deal on the fiscal cliff, and is it sort of the transcendent deal that some people would like or is it a stopgap to get us into the new congress? >> exactly. it will be a stop gap measure because of two simple reasons. a quarter of congress is turning over. they won't make a big deal in front of that. two, house leader boehner has to get re-elected by his party in

january. he's not going to put a big deal in front of that. flip side is, no deal. i don't think the president will let that happen because he doesn't want to start his second term as president the way he started the first which was in a recession. but finally, what people fail to forget -- congress needs to go home for holidays. if they go home with no deal they will be criticized by their constituents. >> there are very few working days left when congress comes back from this thanksgiving break. >> remember what happened. t.a.r.p.? they didn't approve it. went home for the holidays, got criticized, came back and approved it. >> you see some stort of stopgap that averts the immediate tax hikes an spending cuts as of january 1, and that there is then some commitment to do a broader tax reform in 2013. >> correct. >> and that might be tied to raising of the debt ceiling.

might'nt it. >> i think that's the next big date, mid-february when the treasury runs out of money, the debt ceiling is hit. if you think about the stock market, what's hurt the stock market is always leading up to these big dates the market gets -- >> a big rally today. should we believe it? >> congress is not around. but the middle of next week they're coming back so i do think the anxiety will build again. >> 2013 going to be a good or bad year for equities, and if so what stocks or areas would you put money in? >> i think the economy's accelerated. we've started to see better economic signals here, notwithstanding the fiscal cliff. we could have a very good year for stocks. message here is if you think back to the summer of 2011 when the market dropped because of the political issues, the market's up over 20% since then. so all these political issues have been a great chance to step in this weakness, not to be a seller. >> andrew, see you i hope sooner than the beginning of the new year. if so, we'll have you back here.

>> thank you. u.n. secretary-general ban ki-moon just arrived in cairo in a bid to stop the missile war between israel and hamas. israel has vowed to launch a ground offensive to storm out the missile fire. tanks and troops are on the border waiting for the green light from jerusalem. hamas and gaza based islamic jihad have fired 2,000 rockets at israel this year. several hundred in just the last week. it is now nighttime in that part of the world. they are seven hours ahead of us. israeli air operations have been on and off today. while we've all been very focused on what's happening in israel and gaza, a story line that's been lost in the middle east in the last few days, the massive protests going on in jordan. tens of thousands hitting the streets of amanda demonstrating against the government's decision to hike the price of gasoline and other kinds of fuel. the organizers, the muslim brotherhood. that's the same group that took power in egypt and the group that gave birth to hamas. jordan is still ruled by king abdullah. the muslim brotherhood has made

it clear they'd like him to go. we got a nice rally under way here, bertha. >> nasdaq 100, qqqs are the best performers today and among the best advancers is green mountain coffee. of course this is a huge short position. some 39%. this looks a little bit like a technical rally here. the company's stock has moved above its 50-day moving average. it's been just below that over the last couple of weeks and about $1 above that now. red states versus blue states. is your town a state about to fall off the fiscal cliff? steve leisman has the maps that will show us which states and counties stand to get hit the hardest by potential federal spending cuts. everything is bigger in texas. including the strategy for taking down this building. we'll show you what happened when the engineers pushed the plunger. that's next. if congress drifts u.s. economy off the fiscal cliff, the department of education's 2013 budget will be cut by over

$4 billion with $256 million cut from the federal student aid program. and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. it's just common sense. when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education. let's invest in our teachers... ...so they can inspire our students.

let's solve this.

welcome back. i'm bertha coombs. we have a market floosh here on cliff national resources. one of the worst performers in the s&p. steel industry has been under pressure and the company says it is going to idle some of its minnesota mine in january and one in michigan later on in the year. the outlook they say continues

to be uncertain as far as the economy. the stock here bouncing off of the day's low but steel having its own problems in terms of cliffs. back to you. thank you, bertha. brian schactman has some breaking news on hostess. >> of course we're trying to figure out who might take these brands over if they get their approval to liquidate here. private equity firm sun capital partners according to "fortune" wants to buy hostess out of bankruptcy. if you haven't followed this story before, they'd expressed interest in getting involved in hostess earlier but were rebuffed by the bakery as they tried to go in a different direction. obvious tla other direction failed. we will find out if they were approved to liquidate and see what kind of management will be taken up. sun capital may be in the mix to buy hostess. a lot of people went out and bought some because they don't know when they can get some. we'll see if we see a deal soon. >> thank you very much.

demolition texas style. this 88-year-old building in downtown dallas was imploded yesterday. no, it's not jerry jones' reaction to the cowboys' play against the browns yesterday. they did win. demolition experts attached 300 pounds of dynamite in strategic places and there it went. built in the 1920s, that building, by a cotton tycoon. we talk a lot about how the fiscal cliff will hurt the u.s. but that obscures the pain that will be felt at the state and local levels. our senior economics reporter steve leisman has been doing the math about who falls the hardest if we do go over the cliff. steve? >> if you think about it, it is designed so that there is a lot of pain. the idea of the fiscal cliff, the sequestration, automatic cuts to bring people to the table. we've done, with the help of technology, using diver technology, we dove in to take a look at where federal spending is highest. it is color coated by per capita

spending by county here. what you see -- take a look. where it's red it's the highest from 20 all the way up to 175,000. there's actually one county in north carolina where i think hatteras island is where there is a big fema project. along the eastern seaboard a lot of that fema smending. th spending. then into florida where there's a lot of social security spending. same think along the gulf coast. zoom in on one louisiana county in here, there's a u.s. penitentiary there. a lot of federal spending. up through here, farm subsidies, drought relief. all kinds of things. out in arizona, retirees and other -- all the way up there in the state of washington. i understand we've got somebody coming from that state, a big naval base. that's going to show up big and make it red. what the pew center on the states did, they divided it up, said what federal spending is a% of gdp. maryland, virginia, district of

columbia comes up the highest. fairly evenly split between defense and non-defense cuts. hawaii 16%. the bulk is defense spending. you come down here to alabama where there is a lot of defense spending as well. colorado and georgia would round out the top ten list. another way to look at impact of federal cuts is not just spending but what about jobs. some surprising states show up. texas is a red state but they have a lot of federal jobs as a percentage of total employment. so does california. is it because of sometimes it's military? it's just that they're big states and there happen to be a lot of federal jobs there. also virginia, sort of a purple state. florida comes in relatively high. so michelle, what we have here is a situation where the sequestration was designed to create a lot of political pain across the country but it is going to be unevenly spread out. for example in california, very high unemployment. they could get hit for example with more federal job cuts in

addition to their high unemployment rates. >> great analysis, steve. thanks for that deep down dive into the data. america's ceos are calling for action on the fiscal cliff. precisely what you saw from steve. among them leaders of boeing, weyerhaeuser. joining us on the phone, representative adam smith, a democrat from the ninth district of washington. representative smith, thanks for joining us. i can't think of a better name for a guest on cnbc. >> people are always disappointed that i don't know a lot more about economics than i actually do. but at least it is good to have the name. >> you know what the invisible hand is, at a minimum. >> only too well. >> first of all, before we get into the details of the fiscal cliff, what would you say to americans who don't understand why congress is gone on vacation this week when there's such a huge bit of work -- or piece of work that needs to get done this week when it comes to the fiscal cliff or before the end of the year? >> first of all, we're not on vacation. i'm in my district right now

driving through the rain in the pacific northwest. visiting businesses and schools and a big part of our job is listening to our constituents and interacting with our constituents and talking to them about the issues. when we're at home in our districts -- i know everyone says we're on vacation, it's been sort of the accepted way of describing it -- trust me, this is not how i would choose to spend my vacation. we are in fact working and we'll be back working after thanksgiving and the leaders of both parties are working to the to try to find a deal to get us out from under the fiscal cliff. >> the leaders of two big companies in your area, boeing and weyerhaeuser, have signed this letter saying they really want you guys to get something done. let's talk more about defense cuts. if a deal gets done are you willing to put defense cuts on the table even though it could hurt boeing? >> yeah, absolutely. over the course of the next ten years when you look at what we need to do to get to at least

$1.2 trillion in savings which is necessary to avoid skw sequestration -- or get to the bigger number, the $4 trillion number that most economists agree we need to get our o deficit under control where it is not harming our economy, you got to put everything on the table. defense is 20% of the budget. yes, the president put in $487 billion in reductions but that was reductions from what the projections increase was. i think there's room to fine more savings in defense. but to cut $54 billion out of the fy-13 budget on january 2nd is the exact wrong way to do it. we need to come up with a better plan that avoids sequestration. >> so the two areas that sequestration go after are not just defense but also entitlements. many believe entitlements absolutely have to be reformed in some way. are you willing to put entitlements on the table in the discussions when we talk about avoiding the fiscal cliff since republicans have put revenues on

the table? >> yeah, absolutely. i'm still waiting for the republicans to actually put revenue on the table. they've muttered about it but reject every single proposal so we do need that. yeah, entitlements are 58% of the budget. 58% of a budget that's 40% out of whack. there's no way you get to a ten-year solution without figuring out some way to spend less on entitlements -- >> do you think your view is pervasive among democrats, that they're willing to tackle entitlements at this point? >> look, republicans haven't been willing to tackle entitlements. >> i didn't ask about republicans, i asked about you guys. >> i realize that. i think that's a bit of a misunderstanding out there that the republicans are the ones that are willing to step up to entitlements and democrats aren't. there's reluctance on both parties. democrats found $600 billion in savings in medicare couple years ago for the health care bill and got roundly pummeled for it by

the republicans. look. both sides need to be realistic about our spending and revenue picture. sequestration actually hits discretionary spending. it only touches entitlements a tiny little bit. it mostly comes out of the discretionary budget disproportionately. it is going to have a huge impact not just on defense, but on infrastructure, on housing, on education, on a whole bunch of programs. >> representative smith, thanks so much. get back to that invisible hand and visiting your constituents. we appreciate you joining us here on cnbc. >> mr. smith will go to washington next week, i guess. the market is our big story of the day -- at least one of them. the bulls are back after a very rough week. let's look at some of today's top performers. they are on your screen. they include tyson food, lowe's, bank of america, apple, up for a change by $29. electronic arts. next up, you won't believe what fishermen off the coast of japan have found! we're back in two minutes.

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lunch." the s.e.c. this afternoon charging three new jersey based health care company employees in an insider trading scheme. the director of financial reporting, the director of accounting and a marketing executives, according to the officials, tipped off two high school friends who acted as creating middlemen. all five also face federal criminal charges in the case. 20 months after fukushima nuclear plant meltdown after last year's tsunami, japanese fishermen still catching fish with high levels of radiation. this weekend fish caught 12 miles off the coast where the plant is located were found to have 258 times the country's legal radiation limit. that's the highest radiation levels discovered in fish near japan so far. >> don't even need to cook them. checking on the markets. the dow up 161 points or 1.25%. s&p 500 up more than 1.5% at

1,380.71. nasdaq higher 359%. is this a rally we can believe in? >> absolutely not. it is a rally based on, oh, we're getting a fiscal cliff coming to fruition, we're going to have a deal. we don't have a deal, just no bad news has come out. even if they do have a deal on the cliff, it is going to be something close to what automatically happens if we do go over the cliff. >> you're basically saying we're going to have a deal that's not going to look that good when we finally get a deal? >> exactly. irrational exuberance. >> should i expect more days like this where we're going to see a big yo-yo like swings up and down depending on whether miss pelosi says something nice, mr. boehner says something nice, or some nice noises come out of the white house? more volatility. >> what do i do if i'm an

investor under those circumstances? >> if you're an investor you're probably going to sell on days like today, lock in the profits instead of selling when it is down 2%. look more towards your high yields even though we're worried about dividend taxes. maybe high-yield etfs. until everything comes to fruition. it is not just january with the fiscal cliff. what happens with the deficit ceiling again in february? there's just too many question marks out there. >> should i sell based on the tax hike on dividends or capital gains that may or may not take place? >> i don't know if you want to sell depending on who you are. a lot of people will sell. people will be doing tax swaps at the end of the year to try to position themselves beyond 2013. >> thanks very much. we're going to head down to the nasdaq to seema mody. >> strong day for tech. it is apple that's stealing the show. check out this chart.

just after eight straight weeks of ending in negative territory. shares of apple moving sharply higher, although still down about 20% from its september highs of 7.$705. and is providing a haloed effect to its suppliers. nuance communications said to be behind the siri app. that stock is up. omni vision rumored to be behind the image sensor used in the iphone, also moving sharply higher. overall tech is the best performing sector on the day, rising more than 2%, although it's got to surpass 458 in order to get out of correction territory. >> thank you. gold prices closing right now. jackie deangelis tracking action at the nymex. >> the metals complex seeing a lot of green today along with the broader equity markets. gold up $19.50. the reason is optimism on a deal in the u.s. over the fiscal

cliff. that is the talk down here in the pits. traders telling me gold has held very well above $1,700. they are expecting to see a little more buying but keep an eye out next week. we are expecting a huge december options expiration, open interest in the $1,800 range. could we see a run-up in gold before then? potentially. so watch it. copper prices, more than 2% gained on the day. three reasons -- hopes of a deal like we talked about with gold but also a stronger euro today, and also the u.s. resale home figure that came out this morning giving the markets a little bit confidence that the housing recovery is a little bit stronger than people might have hoped. again copper rising on that. back over to you, michelle. >> thank you. keeping an eye on tech giant intel today after it is announced its ceo is retiring. he's stepping down in the spring. the stock right now is lower by not even .5%. $20.10 a share. jon fortt covers technology, already looking at the short list. >> first we've got to take a

look at intel's general situation and then take a look at some of the ceo candidates. take a look at what intel's challenges are, mainly mobility. smartphones and tab pletlets. they've fallen behind in that arena. they not only need to build in more wireless features on their mobile chips, also get low power capabilities into those, and not only that, tablets. you look at microsoft's new surface tablets, it has ane individuan nvidia chip, not intel. if you want to continue along intel's current path but maybe execute a little bit faster you go with these guys. if you want more of an engineering strategy, maybe switch the strategy up a bit, rene james runs sof wear and

dadi perlmutter. intel is such a special organization, so many secrets, so unique in the way its run, an outside candidate would need a year just to find the bathroom. >> i'll bet they have more than one, jon! tomorrow on "power lunch," speaking of intel, the former chairman and ceo of intel craig barrett will join us. find out what he thinks the company will do next. he's very involved in education as well. >> that should be fascinating. he is a very interesting guy. richest man in the world. a guy you well know, michelle. just bought a sports team. we'll tell you about his favorite new team next.

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let's get the trading action here because there is a lot of it. robert pisani joins us. >> it's very simple. congress left and the market loves it. congress left, the market loves it. >> i understand that. completely! >> i'm not even being facetious. that's the good part about this. because there's nobody around to say anything negative about the fiscal cliff. president, leadership are all out on the weekend talk shows and -- not the president but a number of the big congressional leadership were there. they said they can make a deal and now they've left and there's nobody in congress for a week

and a half. that's what's holding things up. sectors beaten up the most -- recently, oil service names, for example computer hardware stocks and a lot of bank stocks are exact lit ones on the up side. we have an oversold rally, oversold bounce. the rally is moderate. we'll 3.2 billion shares. that's moderate. dividend payers have gotten hit very hard but have also stabilized. they're not outperforming today an telecomes, receipts and utilities are all moving up. insurance stocks moving up. three days in a row. all your big names, chubbs, all-states -- >> why do you think that is? >> losses are not going to be as much. >> it is mostly flooding. not on the top en. >> here's another thing i've

just heard in the last few days. business interruption insurance that everybody had isn't going to pay out as much because generally you need to have physical damage to occur. so if your business went down because the power company went out -- >> it doesn't get covered. >> no. my understanding is most of it will not covered if that occurrence happened. you must have physical damage for business interruption insurance. that was a very big part of the underwriting. >> sure, gout to read through the fine print. mr. santelli's track being the action at the cme. a big rally. does that mean selling in bonds? >> you are seeing a bit of selling but not very much. the treasury market pretty stubborn about what it believes. if you look at one-month charts to all of the following, remember it gives you how the markets traded before the fulcrum which was the election. two-thirds into the way these charts is post-election. if you look at the 10-year, it was pretty choppy in the 1.80s. election hits at 1.75. it's been comatose basically between 1.58, 1.62 closing yield ranges.

if we look at the lqd, investment grade etf, it acted a lot like stocks, it fell pretty hard and it is bouncing along the bottom. hasn't really turned up the way stocks did today. high yield, different story. but, it plummeted and is now on the rise following the stock market rather aggressively. everybody loves the wire player. in this instance it is high yield. maybe the last one gives us the best assessments of what the fiscal cliff may entail. this is a muni etf. everybody's running to the tax-free side of the equation. >> wonder why! thank you, rick. new signs today that the housing recovery is in fact real and actually solidifying. to strong reports, one on home sales, the other other home builder sentiment. diana olick has the numbers. >> reporter: the two are intimately connected. the builders are seeing greater demand because of a big drop in supplies of existing homes. existing home sales are improving but supplies are still

dropping. just 2.14 million homes for sale or a 5 hadn.4 month supply. that's down from a year ago. thanks to more aggressive loan modifications and fewer homes for sale. add to that one-fifth of the market is still investors. that number rose in on the. one-third of the market is all cash. that's just way too much competition for your first time home buyers who are still lagging and your owner occupants who need a mortgage. on the flip side, the home builders are benefiting. that's why you see the sentiment number edging up. finally up into the positive. why? they're getting those first-timers and they're not getting investors so owner occupants just don't have to compete. current sales jumped eight points on the sentiment scale and sales expectations up to into the positive. again a lot of this thanks to that mortgage servicing settlement we did get a status report update today on that hearing that 300,000 borrowers have don't some kind of mortgage

relief. over $6 billion of principal reduction. that's where you are really seeing what's happening in the market. for more on that, the blog, the facebook page. find it all through cnbc.com. 42 days to the fiscal cliff. joining us now to rise above is a good friend of "power lunch" as he was one of the group of civic leaders to meet behind closed doors with president obama on friday. mark morial, a very happy saints fans as they beat the raiders yesterday, the ceo of the national urban league. you spoke with the president on friday, mayor. where do you think he sees the most fruitful opportunity for compromise? >> the president was in a great mood and i think our meeting on friday capped off a meeting during which the president -- a week, rather, during which the president met with business, labor, civic leaders and congressional leaders. and the most important thing

from our perspective are, one, to ensure that middle class and working class tax cuts are sustained in the negotiations, and then number two, to ensure that any of the steps that are taken do not affect negatively on the fragile recovery and the job creation which is beginning to take place. and thirdly, to ensure that america's most vulnerable citizens, those who have been damaged by the recession in a very big way, do not have to bear disproportionate share of the burden to get us to a grand bargain. >> let me come back to something you said in a letter i believe to the president right after the re-election and it was that the national urban league supports a fair and sensible fiscal plan or approach, must marry compassion for the most vulnerable with protection for the nax's jobs and require sacrifice from every american, every american i underscore, including those who have benefited the most. there could be an argument, mayor, that among the people who

have benefited the most in this country over the past year have been those who receive benefits. you know as well as i do that right now roughly half of americans receive some sort of federal benefit and that is up about 12 percentage points over just the past decade. what specific area of benefits to individuals -- payments to individuals -- would you agree needs to be restrained or cut in a bargain? >> well, let me say this -- that if in fact the unemployment rate came down, there would be far fewer americans who would be eligible for food stamps. many americans who are receiving those benefits would prefer to be americans with jobs who have a check coming in each month from their hard earned work. so i think it's very important that many of the americans who have been protected by this safety net would like to be in a

place where they're earning wages. and i think that for those americans who have lost their jobs, those americans who have lost their homes, those americans have paid the most difficult price from this recession. and so my thinking is, we should not ask them to pay more because they've already paid i think a significant price for the recession. >> mayor morial, thank you again for being with us. good to see you, sir. next, the amazing story behind the sale of a $54 million new york city apartment. yes, one apartment. $54 million. and there are two things it doesn't do much good to watch on your dvr. live stock market coverage and also sports coverage. that's why two of the biggest names in media, sports and entertainment, may be about to do a deal. julia. i'm julia boorstin. rupert murdoch and news corp. making a play for the new york yankees cable network. that's not all though. there's a bigger plan in the works. i'm tell you what it is next on

"power lunch." if congress fails to save the u.s. economy from the fiscal cliff, the epa will face a budget cut of over $716 million in 2013 which is $105 million less than the agency's current 2012 level. ♪

[ female announcer ] today, it's not just about who lives in the white house, it's about who lives in the yellow house,

the green, and the apartment house, too. today we not only honor the oval office, but we honor the cubicle, and the home office as well. because today it's about all of us. and no matter who you are, you're the commander-in-chief of your own life. ♪ coming up at the top of the hour, call it the fiscal cliff hopium rally. we run scenarios on the good, the bad and the ugly for your money. it was the one big hurdle for sam adams when he started 28 years ago. find out how the brewer is helping you entrepreneurs with that and also saving jobs in america. and we've got the 300,000 signatures-strong effort to save thanksgiving. you'd be surprised at who is leading this campaign to have one big retailer closed on

thursday. all those things top of the hour on "street signs." back to you on "power lunch" zplip want to hear who it is. some of the biggest names in technology, media and sports have people talking today. yahoo! facebook, murdoch and the yankees. let's bring in julia boorstin. that's a big mix, julia. start with yahoo and facebook. conflicting reports on whether they're working on a search engine. >> what did you hear from facebook? >> well, facebook denies reports that it's in talks to partner with yahoo! on search saying, "people expect a better search experience on facebook and we are working on improvements," "but we are not in talks to enter into a new search partnership." facebook's mark zuckerberg and ceo cheryl sandberg have talked about how they are are going to profit from the billions of search fields facebook faces daily. but in 2009 it outsourced certainly to microsoft's bing inking a ten-year deal. facebook partners with microsoft

for social search and microsoft is an investor in the social netwo network. the big question is whether an appliance between microsoft, yahoo! and facebook could threaten google's dominance in search. certainly one to watch. >> another deal though, high-profile media deal in the works that seems a lot more solid. news corp. making a play for part of the yes network, the new york yankees regional cable network. >> none of the parties are talking but a source says there is a value u saation there of $ billion. the yes network is a key asset because it is the nation's largest most valuable media market in new york. and yes does have room to grow its fees. barclays saying they see "revenue synergies its proving both news corp. and yes' bargaining power. with yes getting ready to spin

off its less valuable publishing assets next year, it makes sense to to twitter begging fans to buy shares in the team. campaign went viral. over 2,000 supporters buying up single shares at $15 a piece. despite them being pretty much worthless. over the weekend white knight steps in, mexican billion nar c carlos slim with his third sports acquisition this year. he is a huge yankees fan. huge baseball fan. media mogul david gefen just landed a fancy piece of property

on fifth avenue in new york city. dreamworks co-founder reportedly paying $54 million for a 12,000 square foot penthouse, the most ever paid for a manhattan co-op. it has seven bedrooms with 11 bathrooms and it overlooks central park. geffen purchased the apartment from socialite denise rich who recently gave up her u.s. citizenship. what did kill the twinkie? was it the consumer in the kitchen with a calorie counter? or a union? ] introducing the new dell xps 12. part of a whole new line of tablets from dell. it's changing the conversation. ♪

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power rundown time. michelle and john carney my victims today. investment falling off a cliff. u.s. companies cutting investments. f fastest pace since the recession and executives blaming it on the fiscal cliff. michelle, how big a problem is this and does it possibly preface a recession next year? >> it is a huge problem. investment is what drives future growth. if you cut investment, not surprised, steve leisman's been talking about it for a long time because of the fiscal cliff, obviously it leads to lower growth than would you have otherwise than if you had invested. i think it is a very bad sign. >> it is a very bad sign. it means that businesses think

that we are going to have slower growth. this is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. they spend less which means people have less income which means that they have less to spend. it is a recipe for a slowdown. part of the reason they're doing it is because fiscal cliff or no fiscal cliff, taxes are going up next year. >> even since you didn't ask, i say yes also, it is a big problem. let's move on to the twinkie. our yahoo! finance question of the day -- what went wrong at hostess? look at the results. corporate management gets the blame. union problems, 3 out of 5 say that was the problem there with the twinkies. the american anti-fat kick. 9%. they make an outdated product, 12%. what went wrong? >> what happened is that the demand for the product went way down but they couldn't make the kind of concessions on costs meaning labor costs that they needed to. when the demand for your product is falling, you need to cut back. the labor unions weren't flexible to let them really do it. what we ended up with was a morass.

if the unions had been more flexible, we could still buy twinkie gate. >> someone donated an autographed painting by salvador dali. instead of selling it on the floor. goodwill is auction is it off. bid something up over $18,000. >> i love anything with a melted clock and lots of ants in it, tyler. anything with -- i think it's great. who knows if they really knew but it is going to bring in a lot of money for goodwill. i'm a big dali fan. he was very prolific. in the next hour, how big dividend stocks could fare, deal or no deal. a lot hanging in the balance there. we'll be right back. because i can trade

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well, if itmr. margin?margin. don't be modest, bob. you found a better way to pack a bowling ball. that was ups. and who called ups? you did, bob. i just asked a question. it takes a long time to pack a bowling ball. the last guy pitched more ball packers. but you... you consulted ups.

you found a better way. that's logistics. that's margin. find out what else ups knows. i'll do that. you're on a roll. that's funny. i wasn't being funny, bob. i know. welcome back. if you are long stocks, last week was painful, today is not. dow industrials higher by 159 points off the highs that were 179-point gain earlier. s&p 500 higher by 20. nasdaq up a whopping 1.66%. big hunk of that nasdaq move in apple which has had a really rough go over the past two months, up more than $20, i